Slices of Me
by Terra
Summary: “What are you afraid of?” “Right now, Mr. Winner? I'm afraid of the legal consequences of skewering you with my salad fork.” Quatre and Dorothy learn the meaning of peace and freedom from fear.
1. Poverty: Inertia

Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing, which is a registered trademark of Sotsu Agency Co., LTD. TM & Sunrise & under license by Bandai.

A/N- This was written for the gw_dark LJ community prompts; this month's prompt is: _Quatre _and _realistic despair, a psychological fist in the face, a PTSD theme, homelessness, abject poverty, having no options left, _and/or_ the-world-was-better-at-war_. Bonus points for: _smex, spanking, darkfluff_.

* * *

**Inertia**

by Terra

* * *

He thinks he knows when it began. The first time he forgets to eat his gourmet lunch because he was too busy. The first time he realizes that he hates sleeping on his thousand-thread count Egyptian cotton sheets. The first time he wants to tear his silky Italian-imported dress shirts off in a meeting. He wants to watch their faces – his astonished board of directors, his scandalized prim and proper sisters – when he starts ripping buttons and shouting: This_ is me! I am not someone to be coddled. I have lived. I have suffered. I have killed. Who are _you_ to patronize me?_

But Quatre doesn't. Because he is a good person – a wholesome, moral, compassionate person who can never make another mistake. He already has a lifetime of sins to atone for. So he takes walks instead. And it bothers him that he never sees any panhandlers on L4. Poverty is just a buzz word for politicians running for reelection; _the unemployment rate dropped again_, they declare proudly. Because on the Colonies, everyone must work, must contribute _something_ to the fragile, artificial shell that is their only shelter, their only protection from the crushing chill of space. Not so on Earth – he sees them everywhere. In Italy, they hand him babies and try to rob him. In America, they give him pamphlets with one hand and beg with the other. In China, they ask for his water bottle to recycle for a few cents.

Once, he is in a small family grocery when a young man wearing a ski mask points a gun at the cashier. Before Quatre can move, the cashier pulls out a shotgun and blows his head off. The young man's eyes are twisted scars of horror, his mouth gaping in shock as he crumples to the ground, his arms eagle spread across the cheap linoleum floor. The cashier catches Quatre's eye, jerks his head at the corpse and says with disgust: "What a mess."

He wonders what the world has come to that people are this hardened. He grew up dreaming of making historic decisions, of winning epic battles and interstellar wars; but it is dime store muggers, shivering panhandlers and bony prostitutes who have won. He is not disillusioned, he thinks, because the prince of outer space – with his space yachts, his dozen estates, his billions of credits – has no right to compare himself to the poor.

When he expresses this sentiment to the only working class man he knows, his friend responds: "You think too much. People are just trying to live. No one cares who's in power or who won the war. The poor are poor no matter who's in charge."

"But _I_ can do something," he protests.

"Lofty ideals are nice," says Trowa, "but the only ones who can afford them are those who don't need them."

Quatre argues: "That kind of thinking is a dead end. Despair can only beget more despair."

"Look. It's inertia. It's too hard to break people out of their ways. It's why we can defeat rebels and terrorists and overthrow oppressors but we can't ever win the war on poverty. You can throw money at people but you can't touch the problem."

"What _is_ the problem?"

"Who knows?" Trowa shrugs. "Maybe progress is impossible without a cost. Maybe capitalism was designed to create victims. You can't know you're better off unless everyone else is worse off. Maybe it's social evolution – weeding out the least fit to survive. Pruning the dead roses so that the bush can grow. Maybe it's designed to create fear, to keep us in line, make us easier to control so the elite can feel safe."

"You think having socioeconomic classes is the problem?"

"I don't know, Quatre. I don't think about it. That's the point."

He remembers his friend's words from time to time. When he sees long lines winding around soup kitchens in crumbling churches, when he sees disheveled Santas ringing bells in front of stores, when he sees scrawny artists in the park with a cigarette in one hand and a charcoal pencil in the other, he thinks that optimism is hard. He has known pessimists from all walks of life but it's the optimists he remembers being strong. He recalls them looking life full on and not shirking away from its reality. The ones he knows all refuse to run – to dismiss the difficult as impossible, the desperate as hopeless; they stand their ground and have faith.

It is almost a year later but he can still see the faint outline of bloodstains on the linoleum floor. That's something he understands. There are things no one can ever wash off. The door dings as it opens and he watches the cashier glance suspiciously at the young man who swaggers in with his hands stuffed in his sweatshirt, his head tucked under the hood. When he shakes his hood off, Quatre sees bright blue eyes and a head bopping to the music player he has hidden in his pockets. When he's standing in front of the cashier, he reaches for a bag of sunflower seeds.

Quatre thinks that maybe Newton didn't know everything.

* * *

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A/N- I'm expanding my flashfics and oneshots to cover darker territory than is allowed by my _Slices of Life_ prompts. Those are primarily reserved for friendship/humor stories so this is where I'll be posting my darker-themed works. I hope this was interesting and enjoyable. I always love hearing comments and constructive criticism so don't hold back. Thank you for reading!


	2. Despair: Blue Moon

Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing, which is a registered trademark of Sotsu Agency Co., LTD. TM & Sunrise & under license by Bandai.

A/N- This was written for the gw_dark LJ community prompts; this month's prompt is: _realistic despair, a psychological fist in the face, a PTSD theme, homelessness, abject poverty, having no options left, _and/or_ the-world-was-better-at-war_. Bonus points for: _smex, spanking, darkfluff_.

* * *

**Blue Moon**

by Terra

* * *

When he hears the sirens and sees the flashing red lights, his first instinct is to cut and run. But then he remembers that it's peacetime now and it's not his face on wanted posters. Sensational war crimes have long given way to crimes more mundane and easily ignored. It's the rapist attacking elderly women who is public enemy number one now. So he doesn't run. He walks to the police cars and ambulance parked in front of his apartment complex and he arrives just in time to hear the collective murmurs of horror in the crowd and see a body bag being wheeled down the steps.

"They're saying it's that – what's his name? – that Carster guy. From 407—" he hears someone whisper, scandalized. He doesn't stay to hear the rest; he is running, pushing through the crowd, ignoring the annoyed voices behind him, shoving his way out until he's standing in front of the paramedic, strangely winded, with his hands locked on the cool metal handles of the gurney.

"Hey! What do you think you're doing?" the paramedic shouts but it's too late and Duo is unzipping the bag and everyone can see the dead face of Ray Carson from 407. Someone screams. Someone – an officer, he thinks – shoves him away from the body and yells threats, a baton whizzing in the air.

"I knew him," he says distantly and he thinks he should not be this shell-shocked because if he were honest with himself, he knew this was coming. He repeats: "I knew him. He was my friend."

And then the gurney is being lifted into the ambulance and the doors are slammed shut and when it drives away, its lights are no longer flashing. The silence seems to say: _not an emergency, nothing important here – just another suicide._ The crowd thins out, people shooting him dirty looks as they pass, and he numbly climbs the stairs to his apartment. But when he reaches for the doorknob, he suddenly realizes he is outside 407 and the door is ajar. He ignores the yellow tape and walks in. The living room is exactly the way he remembers it; the tattered, floral-patterned couch obnoxiously out-of-place in the center of the room and he remembers Ray telling him fondly: "The wife made me buy this piece of junk. She's crazy about flowers – that nut."

Duo recalls noticing something strange in his accent. "Where are you from?"

"Earth," answers Ray vaguely. "That's where the missus is now. And my little girl." He pulls out his wallet and shows Duo a picture of a girl with crooked teeth and freckles and love in her eyes. "You from around here?"

"Born and raised," he nods.

Ray snorts. "How do you put up with this shit? You got to recycle everything. I'm drinking my own damn urine and everything smells like burnt plastic. I haven't had fresh food in weeks. Everything's in a goddamn can."

"You get used to it."

"Horsepiss. I've been here two months and it don't get any better," he grumbles. "When I got to this orbiting hellhole, they pumped me so full of drugs I thought they'd mistaken me for a cancer patient. They told me I might feel sore. I'm _still_ sore."

Duo laughs at the prickly way he says this. "Can't help it. We don't want some Terran virus to wipe us out."

"You guys got any common sense – you don't vaccinate yourself to the nines. You tough it out and then you don't have to cower from every cough or sneeze."

"There's not much common sense to go around. At least not on L2. We've had too many viral epidemics where the Alliance abandoned us. And people have a long memory. You can thank the Alliance for the prejudice against dirty Terrans."

Ray curses. "Who's dirty? You guys eat and drink your own shit."

"_We_ eat and drink our own shit," he corrects, smiling.

Duo never sees Ray outside the apartment building. He is always smoking on the fire escape or slumped in the halls with a bottle of whiskey or limping to the roof with his lame leg to look at the fake stars. It is three weeks after he meets Ray that he is asked: "How come you never ask what I'm doing here?"

"I figure you have your reasons." Duo shrugs. "It's none of my business if you don't want to tell me."

"There's somethin' different about you."

"Yeah?"

"You fought in the war, didn't you?"

Duo is surprised. He looks down at his casual attire – jeans, sneakers and ratty t-shirt – and knows he has done nothing to make anyone notice him. "How can you tell?"

"You're young. Too young to have that look. Like you've been scared shitless and don't know how to make anything matter anymore," he pauses. "And you smile too damn much."

"You a veteran?" he asks carefully.

Ray nods curtly. "Alliance. Before those OZ fuckers overthrew us. Shot us clean in the back. Never saw it coming. Then I got drafted to fight the White Fang."

"I was—" he pauses, considering. "I fought for the Colonies."

"I figured. The way you colonists tell it, everyone's a goddamn patriot. I thought I'd come here. See what it's like to be a hero, get a new start. Away from the same political bullshit, the same goddamn hypocrisy. But this place ain't any different from Earth."

"You don't sound thrilled to discover our common humanity," drawls Duo, amused.

"Horseshit. That's just fancy rhetoric that don't mean nothin'."

"You planning to go back someday?"

"Yeah, well — I got to see my kid, don't I?" answers Ray, squinting at something over Duo's shoulder and his face changes, begins to crumble and he knows that Ray is staring at something that only he can see. The unconscious gesture is private, too private, to include anyone else. Duo considers it his cue to leave.

The first time Duo finds him on the roof, Ray is standing near the edge looking down. "Bit of a drop," he comments.

"Yeah," agrees Duo.

Then he looks up at the sky and scoffs: "You call that a moon? It ain't any better than my halogen lamp."

"You should see the energy bill for that halogen lamp," says Duo, smiling. "But the Terrans lobbied hard for it, so there it is."

"What's the goddamn point if it's always a full moon?"

"Isn't that how you guys like it?" asks Duo curiously.

Ray retorts: "What gave you that idea? The moon's never full for more than a day on Earth. You ever hear the expression: once in a blue moon?"

"I might have read it somewhere."

"That's when there are two full moons in a month. It means somethin's rare when you say it happens once in a blue moon. _That's_ why it's beautiful. Why we sentimental Terrans write poems and books about it. Because it's something we only get to see once every twenty-nine days. It builds and builds and then it fades and we get to start over again. You might see twenty-some blue moons your entire life. Your entire _l__ife_. What the hell is the goddamn point of writing poetry and books about a light you turn on every night?"

Duo considers this. "I guess we forgot about that when we became colonists. There's no room for sentiment in space. Life is too hard."

"Nah. We've always got room for sentiment. I've seen what passes for quality programming around here," says Ray, disgusted. "This – this handing us something we want and then laughing behind our backs...it's just spitting in our faces. It's appeasement but it's appeasement on your terms. Here's your precious moon but we're going to make it worthless to you. Isn't that how you colonists think of us?"

"Not everyone. But people still remember what it was like to live under the Alliance. They're trying to make themselves different, create some distance."

"Not bloody likely to happen. This place may smell like a dung heap but we all stink the same. Put a bunch of people anywhere and you'll get the same problems, kill for the same things, fight the same wars — and you call that different?"

Once, Duo finds Ray unconscious on the stairwell. People step over him all morning and all afternoon and when Duo sees him at night, he heaves him over his shoulder and sets him down on his ugly floral couch. Then he goes into the kitchen and roots through the garbage that has piled everywhere, the dirty dishes spilling out of the sink, the torn-open rations containers vomiting out of the cupboards, to find a glass. He fills it with water from the tap; then he upends it on Ray's face. When he suddenly startles awake, his eyes bloodshot and stance tense, he leaps up and charges Duo.

His reflexes save him in time and he shouts: "Ray! It's me! It's Duo. Ray, stop!"

But Ray can't hear him and he is a blur of violence and erupted rage. Duo dodges another blow with enough force to break bone and he starts to feel his heart pounding in that familiar rhythm he has tried to forget. Duo is afraid to touch him; he doesn't know how to stop him without killing – without _hurting_, only hurting – him. When Ray's shoulder shoves into his side, he has finally had enough. He waits for the right moment, sees an opening, punches him in the jaw – but not too hard – and Ray falls down, staggering from his own momentum. Duo tries again: "Stand down! Stand down, soldier!"

It takes a minute but Ray's eyes, still full from the things only he can see, finally focuses on Duo. He croaks, "It's you. I thought—"

"No," he interrupts.

Ray slowly stands, wheezing. "Sorry 'bout that," he slurs. "I thought you was someone else."

"You're drunk."

"Yeah," he grins unabashedly. "I am. You wan' some?"

"That's enough. Where's your wife?" asks Duo shortly.

"She's on Earth. With my Lily. Didn't I tell you?"

"_Where_ on Earth?"

"Nowhere. I don't know. Won't let me touch her, won't let me see her. Says she can't trust me no more. Isn't that funny?" Ray laughs mirthlessly, his eyes bleak. "Can't _trust_ me. Trusted me to save her life, didn't she?"

"You don't want to go down this road, Ray. Trust – trust _me_. The booze, the drugs," he sees the little dots running up and down arms that are always covered, "it won't change anything. You might forget for a while. Maybe it buys you an hour or two of quiet but then you wake up and if you're lucky, everything's still the same. You need and need until it burns away everything and it's all you can think about. And it will never – it will never stop."

"Who said anythin' about stoppin'?" he asks, still grinning and shoots Duo an indulgent look, his eyes fluttering, eyelids heavy.

Duo sighs, raking his hand through his hair in frustration, still coiled with tension, his heart thundering in his ears. He is still too dangerous and he never, _never_ wants to paint the walls red again. He orders: "Go to sleep. You don't understand anything I'm saying. But we're doing something about this in the morning."

The night before he puts a gun in his mouth and swallows a bullet, Ray comes to say goodbye. But Duo doesn't know it then. All he knows is that Ray is sober, that he is clean and shaven and the dishes are washed. He thinks that maybe he is doing better, but he should have known. "Hey, thanks. You did good with me. Knew how to handle me right," he tells Duo.

"I've been there," he responds tersely.

"Yeah? Yeah, that makes sense." Before Ray disappears down the hall, he looks back and his blue eyes seem to burn in the dark corridor. A smile – it starts strained, a too-practiced quirking of the lips, but then it blossoms into a curving red gash, the corners creased and his eyes wrinkled and it is a genuine, _genuine_ smile – stretches his face. "Don't wait up for me," he says finally. "I'll be seeing you."

Standing in the empty apartment, looking at the clean kitchen and the emptied garbage and the neatly stacked cans, Duo thinks about his dismal record of trying to save people. Or maybe it's just that he can't stay away from people who don't want to be saved. This is his new addiction – the clean despair of people with nothing to lose, who fill him, give him hope because he is not there yet. As his eyes trace the explosion of flowers masquerading as furniture, he notices a small note tucked in the cushion. The crooked handwriting is unfamiliar but there's only one person who could've written it.

"The couch is yours," he reads. "Take good care of it or I'll sic the ex-wife on you."

Stunned, he starts laughing and he feels a pressure that builds and builds in his chest until his face is red, and it is a _good _red, until he can't remember what it was like to force out dishonest laughs. That is what he likes best about Ray. He always tried to make him laugh. He was the jokester – so that Duo didn't have to be, he suddenly realizes. He thinks he knows now what those parting words meant. _Don't wait up for me_. "I won't. Wait anymore." _I'll be seeing you. _"Yeah. I'll be seeing you."

Duo smiles and it is his first real smile in a long time because, like Ray said, he smiles too much. "But not too soon."

* * *

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A/N- My first piece on Duo. I've avoided writing him for years because he's just so hard to understand. Sure, he's great comedic relief in any story but writing him seriously? Definitely intimidated me. But the prompt this month demanded that I suck it up and write this so...there it is. If you have a moment, I'd love to hear your thoughts and constructive criticism. These "darker" stories are still new territory for me. Thanks for reading!


	3. War: The Forever War

Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing, which is a registered trademark of Sotsu Agency Co., LTD. TM & Sunrise & under license by Bandai.

A/N- This was written for the gw_dark LJ community prompts; this month's prompt is: _realistic despair, a psychological fist in the face, a PTSD theme, homelessness, abject poverty, having no options left, _and/or_ the-world-was-better-at-war_. Bonus points for: _smex, spanking, darkfluff_.

* * *

**The Forever War**

by Terra

* * *

He never makes a sound when he comes. He won't give her the satisfaction. But she always moans wantonly. Sometimes, she screams to show him she doesn't care what he thinks of her. Whenever he's planetside, she comes without warning, without appointment, without a care for anything but her own pleasure. It is four years and sixteen days since the Eve Wars ended. One year and twenty-seven days since that first knock on his door.

Quatre is waiting – just as he always is – when she opens the door he leaves ajar. He looks at her cashmere sweater and wool skirt and white headband and she is so soft and homely that for a moment, he doesn't believe it's her. Standing primly in the doorway of his penthouse suite, he can imagine that she is a young mother, maybe even a young wife returning home. Dorothy ruins the fantasy by stripping.

He is never allowed to undress her or touch her until she is ready. She reaches for her headband and Quatre hears himself saying: "No. Leave that on."

She glances at him sideways, her eyes glowing gray in the dimness of room, sweeping his face, dissecting his reasons. She smiles, amused. "I'm not innocent. No matter how much you crave the illusion."

But she keeps it on, so he says nothing. She pulls off her sweater, and when she catches him watching, she is careful not to sweep the headband off as she lifts it over her head and tosses it on the ground. He is surprised to see that she isn't wearing a bra. His eyes travel downwards, tracing her too-visible ribs, her protruding hipbones. She unbuttons her skirt and he sees that she has come to meet him without any underwear. "Don't," he says suddenly.

"What?" Her eyes flutter open, too innocent, coy. "You don't want me?"

"That's a stupid question," he replies curtly, struggling to feign disinterest. "Put your clothes back on."

"Why?" Dorothy cocks her head to the side.

"I don't want you. Not like this."

"Not good enough," she responds, dropping the skirt, letting it slip down her long legs. Dorothy walks to him and pushes him down against the bed, her signal that she's ready – that she'll allow him to touch her now. "Not good enough," she repeats before pressing her lips against his, swallowing the words he wants to say.

The next time he sees her, she is wearing the headband again. She's clothed in stockings and a pleated skirt and a silk blouse that make her look like the sultriest schoolgirl he has ever seen. He is on her as soon as she sheds the last stitch. Afterwards, he feels sated for the first time in months. He doesn't want to admit that it is because he enjoys desecrating innocence. It disgusts him, the man he's become. Quatre vows to stay away from her.

When they meet again a year later, they're both guests at the annual Christmas Ball, celebrating the fifth anniversary of the Eve Wars. Quatre is standing on the balcony ignoring the noisy festivities behind him when he hears her voice pronouncing, "Good evening, Mr. Winner," in the precise dulcet tones that still haunt him. He doesn't turn around but he answers politely: "Good evening, Lady Catalonia."

"So formal," she mocks.

He says defiantly, "I'm a gentleman."

"Quite." Dorothy laughs gaily. She slides her gloved hand along his arm pausing at his shoulder, looping her other arm around his neck; she turns him to face her, cradling him. She rests her head against his chest. "You're trembling," she murmurs.

That night when he falls away from her, his hands finally steady again, his body heavy and limbs lethargic, he closes his eyes, expecting her to stand up and coolly dress. She always leaves him after, acting as if nothing happened and nothing was shared. But this time, she doesn't. Several tense minutes later, he feels Dorothy shifting beside him, leaning closer, her movements hesitant. She whispers in his ear: "What does it feel like to kill someone?"

"What?" he asks, startled.

"I've never killed anyone. Not really," she confesses. "Mobile Dolls are so impersonal."

Quatre is silent for a long time. Finally, he answers: "You don't feel anything. Not at first. You're surprised — because it's so easy. You think it shouldn't be so easy."

"And then?"

"You feel guilt."

"How cliché."

"It's not that kind of guilt. You feel guilty that you aren't sorrier. That the world isn't crashing down around you." Quatre rolls away from her as memories he has long locked away assail him. He is starting to remember why he dislikes her. "Nothing changes…even when an irreplaceable person is gone. Life goes on. You wonder if it'll be the same for you."

"That's very selfish of you."

"Killing is selfish," he counters sharply. "You tell yourself it's necessary, that one day history will vindicate you. But the next time you see a widow, an orphan, grieving parents – you think maybe it's your fault. But you go out the next day and do it again."

"Was it hard?"

"Not hard enough." Her question is about the past but Quatre answers in the present: "If it were, I wouldn't be able to kill at all. It's too simple to dissociate and see everything as us versus them. Like we're not all the same kind of selfish."

"Were they? As selfish as you, I mean. _They_ were following orders. Whereas you…the battles were your personal crusade," she states, watching him intently; languidly running her fingers along his chest, ignoring the hitches in his breath. "You killed and maimed to inflict your own version of justice on the world. _That's_ really why you're hoping history will redeem you, isn't it?"

He flinches. "Yes."

"How sad. I don't know much about killing but I do know surviving. Being abandoned because some zealot with a vendetta thought it would be easier to blow people up than face them across a conference table. But then — you know a great deal about that, too. Don't you?"

Quatre stiffens. "We are not talking about my father, Dorothy."

"All right," she concedes, shrugging. "Then what's next? After the shock and guilt wear off."

"Fear. You're terrified that someone's going to—"

"Catch you red-handed?" Dorothy's smile is wide, too wide, indecent.

"Look at you with horror," he continues grimly, "like you're a monster. Condemn you for not wanting to punish yourself more. Because you still want to live – you want your heart to beat, your lungs to breathe. To think, to walk, to feel. You can't help wanting it and you wonder what a man's last thoughts are. You try to come up with your own – what you'll think before dying. You imagine it, draw up a script and try to cram in only good, charitable, merciful thoughts."

"Does it work?"

"No. When the time comes, the only thing you're thinking is: Goddammit, I don't want to die."

"Not very courageous or noble, Mr. Gundam pilot. It seems like the public has got you war heroes pegged all wrong," observes Dorothy.

"There's no such thing as a war hero. And nothing noble about it. Everybody loses in war."

"A touching sentiment, Quatre. But there's always a winner. People eventually do choose the lesser of two evils."

"The lesser of two evils?" he probes, his brow creased.

"A forever war…or having to live under the thumb of the winner of the moment."

"Which one would you choose?"

"Me? I'd prefer the forever war. There's no difference, you know, between peace and an eternal war," declares Dorothy. "It eventually becomes such an entrenched part of us that it fades into the background, becomes something normal. There's a kind of stability in that. And not nearly as much hypocrisy."

"War is peace?"

"Precisely," she says, pleased.

"You're wrong. That's an impossible dream."

"Oh? Why is that?"

"Someone will break. Someone always breaks."

Since that night, whenever Quatre catches a glimpse of her, she is always wearing a white headband and it makes him hard just seeing it. He forces himself to be gentle; he _must_ be gentle; he can't give her what she wants. If he does – even once – he is certain she'll leave. Their silent escalation continues for months. Then one night, he opens the door to see her dressed in a white chemise, lace and cotton, covering every inch of skin, and buttoned all the way up to her throat.

Her face is clean of scorn, disdain, gaiety; she is unblemished and naked – no cosmetics, no icy stare, no insincere smile twisting red lips. Dorothy fidgets under his scrutiny, a blush on her cheeks. She looks like a virgin. And Quatre can't stop himself anymore. He surrenders. He breaks. He rips her nightgown apart before he can think. He throws her on the bed, ignoring her gasps of surprise and cries of protest, and doesn't stop – can't stop, _won't_ stop – until he collapses, shivering, on top of her.

When he finally meets her eyes, she is smiling. Dorothy tells him: "You always make love to me. And I just wanted you to fuck me."

"I know."

"I thought I would have to come in a wedding dress next."

Quatre laughs. "What now?"

"Nothing," she says. "Everything."

* * *

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A/N- My penultimate piece for Quatre Torture Month at gw_dark. I think I've hit most of the prompts: poverty, despair and now, the-world-was-better-at-war with a side of darkfluff. Dedicated to the readers of my sprawling "second season" of GW, _Valhalla,_ who've been waiting for some _actual _romance between Dorothy and Quatre. Thanks so much for reading!


	4. No Options Left: Forever Peace

Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing, which is a registered trademark of Sotsu Agency Co., LTD. TM & Sunrise & under license by Bandai.

A/N- This is the companion piece to _The Forever War _and is Dorothy's perspective on roughly the same timeline. This was written for the gw_dark LJ community prompts; this month's prompt is: _realistic despair, a psychological fist in the face, a PTSD theme, homelessness, abject poverty, having no options left, _and/or_ the-world-was-better-at-war_. Bonus points for: _smex, spanking, darkfluff_.

* * *

**Forever Peace**

by Terra

* * *

She is afraid. Fear makes her cruel. She takes the edge off with gay smiles and disguises vicious barbs with laughter that doesn't reach her eyes. But with him, she feels naked – and it has nothing to do with the friction of bare skin, languid kisses, the strength she delights in forcing him to use. Dorothy knows she is safe with him; the thought terrifies her. Every time she leaves him, she thinks she should never have let him touch her.

He has crushed her pride into dust, and all she has left is the power to decide when to go to him. She is grateful – _it angers her_ – that he is too blind to know she's done playing games. It begins as a way to show him that he has not touched her; that his intrusions into her mind and her surrender on the Libra were not lasting; that his kindness has not triumphed over her. It is two years and twelve days after the Eve Wars ended when she sees him again.

They meet at the unraveling of the Eve War Memorial. The irony is not lost on her – nor on him, she observes, when he takes the podium and delivers a passionate speech by rote. There is something insincere about his manner that stinks of fear. When the last glass of champagne is imbibed and the last flashbulbs fade, she finds him in the chapel for the nameless dead. His back is to her but the stiffness in his shoulders betrays his awareness of her.

"Your speech was touching. And yet, you're hiding in here with the anonymous dead," she says, the click of each step echoing in the empty mausoleum until she stops beside him; they stand shoulder-to-shoulder, reading the single tribute etched in the merciless marble. "I could make an insensitive metaphor — but those are best left for fiction, I think. Why don't you just tell me what you're afraid of?"

Quatre turns and her breath catches in her throat because his eyes are moist and his eyes are so blue it is all she can focus on. His first words to her in years are painfully impersonal: "100,371 people died so we could fill a wall with their names."

Dorothy feels a sudden pressure in her chest; she refuses to believe it could be disappointment. Her voice is clean of emotion: "The history book of the victor is written in blood. It's the only way anyone remembers – or cares."

"I can't believe that," he shakes his head, his voice sharp, "I won't believe that they died to buy us some time – just a reprieve until the next war. Their sacrifice can't be so meaningless."

"_Your_ sacrifice?" she asks.

"_I_ made these men nameless. I didn't think I'd live to see the world after war. I never thought I'd have to see families sobbing at graves. Whatever sacrifices I made — I need to know they meant something." He gestured at the lone epitaph: _They refused to stand down at the end of the world. That kind of courage needs only one name. They were our saviors, nameless but never forgotten._

"They're gone," she replies, "the only kind of meaning they have now is what we give them."

"It's that easy?"

"Or that hard. Does it upset you? That politicians and hypocrites twist their sacrifice into serving whatever happens to be their agenda of the week?"

"It's shameful."

"Oh? But you did the same today," she reminds him. "Did you even write that speech—"

He moves in a blur, gripping her arm tightly; a gasp escapes her lips when he closes in on her, jerking her against him until she is surrounded by heat and the faint aroma of aftershave and she can feel the expensiveness of his suit scrape against her arms. Quatre's eyes are impossibly blue, bright with fever. "Don't think you know me, Dorothy," he breathes in her ear, foregoing formalities, discarding any veneer of civility, "save it for the sycophants panting after you."

She pushes him off her, ignoring the pulsing red bracelet he leaves on her arm. "Don't ever touch me again," says Dorothy coldly. Then she laughs to hurt him because he has hurt her. "How the mighty have fallen," she mocks.

Quatre turns the tables on her without missing a beat. An ironic smile curls his lips, disingenuous. "I never thought you had that illusion of me."

Her cheeks flush and she snaps, "I don't."

"Be careful, Dorothy," he says, raising a hand to stroke her hair. "Don't get too close to me. You'll be disappointed." His hand cups the back of her head and he pulls her towards him gently this time. "I'm not whole anymore," he whispers before dipping his head to kiss her with warm, salty lips. She is too stunned to respond and by the time she can move again, he's already let go. He brushes her cheek with the back of his hand once, twice. Then he turns away and all she can catch is his bowed head until she loses him in the gravestones.

He leaves her behind again.

When she sees him at a charity ball weeks later, Quatre has a curvaceous redhead on his arm. She coos something in his ear and he throws his head back, laughing. Dorothy turns around, her heart thudding, and heads for the exit, another tightness in her chest she can't explain. She is pulling on her mink stole in the foyer when she hears his voice rumbling behind her: "Leaving so soon?"

"I can't see how it's any business of yours," she responds coolly.

"No?" he asks, cocking his head, scrutinizing her. "Then why did you tear out of the ballroom as soon as I came in? I can't help taking it personally."

"Tear out?" She laughs in his face. "Goodness, do let's exaggerate. I have a dinner reservation if you must know."

"At eleven at night?"

She looks at him with mock pity. "Why so shocked? Don't tell me you're the tucked-into-bed by midnight type."

Quatre smiles appreciatively. "Actually, I am. The rumors of my nighttime escapades are greatly embellished."

"Somehow I doubt that." She glances at the door impatiently, making a note not to tip the valet. "You shouldn't leave your date alone too long. It's not gentlemanly. Besides," she says viciously, "she may have found another rich arm to dangle off by now."

He looks stunned at her words. Then he is laughing so hard he presses an arm against the wall to steady himself. "You mean Cathy? That's Trowa's sister you're disparaging with such disdain," he gasps, his shoulders shaking, "she was curious about the hoity-toity ways of the wealthy and chronically bored. I thought I'd enlighten her. You won't find anyone less likely to be a gold-digger in the entire Earth Sphere."

Her cheeks flaming, Dorothy clenches her fists, throbbing with humiliation. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees her car pull up. She manages, "Good evening, Mr. Winner," before turning on her heel and fleeing outside. That night, she dreams of salty lips and warm hands but when she wakes, his laughter is ringing in her ears.

For days afterwards, she thinks about all the ways she can ruin him and she is so absorbed in her plans one evening that when Quatre suddenly sits down at her table, his boldness startles her speechless. "Good evening, Miss Dorothy," he says, unfolding the linen napkin and spreading it on his lap. He hails a waiter and orders champagne. Then he looks at her expectantly until she says tightly, "More wine," and holds up her glass to be refilled.

"Dining alone?" he asks.

"I'm on a date."

"You know," he leans close like they're sharing a confidence, "I don't think this one's a keeper. Not much of a gentleman – making you wait like this."

"I'm not waiting. He canceled."

"How fortunate," he smiles, "mine as well. What are the odds?"

"Not in my favor," she retorts.

Quatre chuckles. "Tell me. Are you this prickly with all your admirers – or is that honor reserved only for me?"

"I don't see any admirers. And even if I did, I certainly don't have to answer that."

"There it is. Skittish right on schedule. I guess it is just me then."

Dorothy ignores him and flips open the menu. "I hope you aren't thinking of staying. I may have lost my date but there's no reason for me to lose my appetite, too."

"Answer me one question and I'll leave you alone."

"Only if that's a promise."

He presses his hand over his heart. He tells her solemnly: "I'm a man of my word."

"What is it?" she asks warily.

"What are you afraid of?" he echoes her question from that day in the mausoleum.

Dorothy holds herself still, unwilling to let his too-observant gaze glimpse a single tremor; but she is trembling inside. She waits until she is certain she can speak evenly. "Right now, Mr. Winner? I'm afraid of the legal consequences of skewering you with my salad fork."

He laughs, unconsciously cradling his side where she hopes fervently the scar her fencing foil left still aches. "That's getting old. You need some new material." Then he slides his chair out and rises to his feet, tossing the napkin carelessly back on the table. "As promised," he says magnanimously before leaving her alone at the table. She wonders when his mere presence became enough to reduce her to juvenile taunts – and was she flirting?

Dorothy tells herself she is relieved when he keeps his word and she doesn't see him in person for nine months. She slowly regains control over her feelings; nowadays when she catches his profile on a magazine cover or in a news report, she is unaffected; she vows never to let him make her blush again. It is a vow she keeps even when Relena cajoles her into attending a benefit for veterans and she runs into him in the center of the Darlian's maze garden. Quatre looks up when she approaches but doesn't move from his position perched on the edge of the fountain, his hand lazily grazing the water.

Finally, Dorothy breaks the silence. "You weren't at the luncheon."

"No. My flight was delayed."

"It's not too late to make an appearance now."

"Why?" he asks tonelessly. "I already wrote a check. Relena knows I hate society matrons."

"You have to concede it's a sound philosophy." She quotes ruefully: "A single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife."

"This single man is not."

"In possession of a fortune or in want of a wife?"

Quatre's expression is inscrutable but she thinks the corners of his mouth quivered. "You play a dangerous game," he tells her, his eyes hard and she thrills at the weight of his words.

Her heart begins pounding but Dorothy calmly denies: "I'm not playing any games."

"Come here."

"Why?" she echoes in the same precise, neutral tones he used earlier.

"Because I want you." His confession hangs in the air and it tears the breath from her lungs; the naked way he looks at her, unguarded, pulls her a step closer, within his reach; his words are so pristine and honest and so _Quatre_ that she moves without resistance when he tugs her toward him. He grasps her face in his hands and she feels every caress of the calluses on his fingers, the unevenness of his breath, the heat of his stare. "I've been waiting," he says softly, "for you to come to me."

Before she can stop herself, she kisses him. He pulls her roughly into his arms and she falls against him, digging her fingers into his shoulders. He threads his hand into her hair forcing her to arch into him, his mouth crushing hers in a brutal kiss that is all teeth and temper and possession. Then he tears himself away and looks at her hard, a question in his eyes. She swallows, hovering so close to him that she can count the flecks of gold, and wills her face to give him the answer he wants.

Whatever he sees must have been enough because he starts kissing down her jaw, biting her neck, sucking against the soft flesh in the column of her throat until her vision blurs and she is clutching blindly at him for balance. For an earth-shattering moment, her heart beats so loudly that she wants to tell him the truth – _her truth_ – just to drown out her traitorous pulse. She opens her mouth to confess when he suddenly tumbles backwards and they crash into the fountain. They break apart in the water and she kicks away, cursing herself; she stands up, drenched, shivering.

Quatre's face is alight with laughter. He sweeps his hair back from his face and he says fondly, "Come back with me, Dorothy."

She's about to say yes, which is why she forces herself to refuse. "No," she shakes her head, "this – this was a mistake." She climbs out of the fountain and takes off running before she can change her mind. Inside Relena's dressing room, she fights a furious battle with herself. _Walking away is victory_, she rails inside her head, _staying is admitting defeat_. She thinks about how it will feel when he discovers that the woman underneath the cold exterior, beneath the glamour, is broken and aimless. She thinks about the despair she will feel when he leaves her – like everyone leaves her eventually. But she can't discount how alive she is with him and the joy of being near him.

Finally, her indecision shows her the only way she can have him. Desperately and never fully satisfied but it is safe. She will give in to him but not wholly, never entirely. She must protect that last sliver of herself for when she will have to pick up the pieces. That night, her pulse fluttering in her wrist, she knocks on his hotel door. When he opens it, she tells him: "You can't touch me. Not ever."

"Then why are you—"

"Until I'm ready," she interrupts before pushing him aside and walking to his bedroom like she has done it hundreds of times before. She leaves behind a tantalizing trail of clothing. It is two years, three hundred and fifty-four days since the end of the Eve Wars.

After that first knock on his door, Dorothy sees him whenever he's planetside. They don't make dates or appointments. She is with him when he thrums with energy after a successful merger, when he is melancholy and thoughtful, when he is depressed and burned by self-disgust. She knows he is unhappy and she comes to realize that he is broken in a different way than she is. The war still rages for him – and self-hatred wears him away. He can't accept his actions or his vices; he hides vainly behind his clean-cut public image.

She cannot respect a coward so she tells him the hard truths he doesn't want to hear. She dresses provocatively in that delicate, innocent way that makes his blood boil. He has seen her naked countless times but she is still afraid of baring her soul – of telling him that final truth. That the war is over and that she is at peace with him. She scrubs her face and slips on the whitest nightgown she can find; she checks for lace and cotton; it covers her body and buttons to her chin. Her reflection in the mirror is positively Victorian – the virginal bride about to ravished on her marriage bed.

Dorothy thinks that maybe tonight she will tell him.

* * *

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A/N- ChibiRoseAngel brought it to my attention that Dorothy's motives in _The Forever War_ were unclear and that it didn't make sense why Quatre stayed with her. I decided to write a companion story from Dorothy's perspective because in Quatre's oneshot, all we see is his interpretation of her actions and not what she actually thinks or believes. So here is _Forever Peace_, which makes the most sense when read after _The Forever War_. This is a deeper, more introspective piece than the other so comments on how it went over and constructive criticism would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for reading!


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